PROFILE
Hollow-Core Flooring application with Peikko DELTABEAM®
A PIONEERING JOURNEY Peikko continues to charter undiscovered territory in the construction industry in South Africa…
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s the global forerunner in slim floor structures, wind energy applications and connection technology for precast and castin situ, Peikko Group Corporation prides itself on an almost sixty-year heritage of developing innovative solutions that offer a faster, safer, and more efficient way to design and build. Headquartered in Lahti, Finland, the family-owned and managed company has sales offices in over 34 countries in AsiaPacific, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North America, with manufacturing operations in eleven countries. Peikko South Africa was established and became fully operational in September 2018, with Daniel Petrov appointed as Managing Director. This year, Peikko celebrates the 30th anniversary of bolted column connections, an innovation launched by the company which has revolutionised the market. “The beauty of a bolted, mechanical connection is that it can be done with a small crew on site and no temporary bracing is needed. As soon as the nuts are tightened, the connection is movement-resistant and the crane can move on to the next column,” said Petrov, referencing Peikko’s input into the structural design of Fourways Mall, situated in Johannesburg’s Northern Suburbs and officially opened in August 2018. He said that using Peikko connections not only simplified the structural design but also improved onsite efficiency of work. “By shortening the floor-to-floor construction cycle time, Peikko provided substantial cost savings for the project,” he said. Peikko’s game-changing product all came down to a question asked by the company in the mid 1980’s: What if we used bolts instead? While it was difficult to get an entirely novel construction method accepted to the market, the design of HPKM® Column Shoes,
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launched in 1991, offered the building sector a smaller, lighter solution that was strong and easy to use. Introducing column shoes dramatically changed the speed of construction process down to ten minutes for each column. Plus, the need for continuous column support was eliminated; and soon they became the industry standard.
JUST THE BEGINNING This innovation was only the beginning for Peikko. Four years after the initial launch, the larger PEC® Column Shoe was launched along with PPM® Anchor Bolts. This combination used even higher strength steel and enabled a higher load bearing. After some success in the domestic market of Finland during the early 1990’s, Peikko decided to take a step towards international markets. As in any industry, exporting and international operations in a new market is always a high-risk action that takes time to produce profit. However, Peikko had an excellent possibility of success at hand as the business competition was still non-existent, and soon the product
Precast Concrete Columns with Peikko HPM® Re-Bar Anchor Bolts and HPKM® Column Shoes
POSITIVE IMPACT ISSUE 13
